The Great Indoors: Interior Architecture

MARCH 2016

Mid-Atlantic Region

Often the most highlighted aspect of a building is the exterior: its integration to an urban landscape, its innovation, the choice of materials. But along with award-winning base building design, MV+A has become an expert in retail and corporate interior architecture. Read below to learn about our interiors work with several east coast grocery stores, and the architect behind it.

Interior WFM | Upper Arlington, OH — Above: Whole Foods Market - Upper Arlington in Ohio. Image courtesy of Thread Collaborative

Interiors are the core of how people, on a day-to-day basis, really interact with their built environment, where excellent design makes a store, office, or residential experience one you want to return to. For the design of our grocery stores and projects, we tailor the design of each project to reflect each unique location as well as the program of each store. We work with the local area in mind; details about the history or landmarks in a neighborhood drive design elements like ceiling finishes and lighting.

Interior WFM | Old Town, Alexandria, VA — Whole Foods Market - Old Town Alexandria/Duke Street. The prepared foods portion of the store, influenced by Old Town Alexandria's rich historic neighborhoods.

Interior WFM | Rodin Square, Philadelphia, PA — Whole Foods Market - Rodin Square, Philadelphia, PA. View of specialty department reflecting the store's food hall concept influenced by Philly's Reading Terminal Market.

Interior WFM | Ellwood Thompson’s, Richmond, VA — Ellwood Thompson's - Richmond, VA. Photo shows the store expansion for the community-focused Ellwood Thompson's Market.

Staff Feature: Kyle Mincey, AIA

On finding out about MV+A 14 years ago:
Reading about the P Street Whole Foods Market and its impact on the 14th Street/Logan Circle area was how I found MV+A. I remember thinking, who would have known that grocery would have such a positive impact?

On MV+A now:
We have so many new projects and staff. When I first started working here, we were working on retail and grocery stores, and we were branching into different project types like 1700 Duke Street and the Tivoli Theater restoration; now we’ve deepened that type of work and are known for complicated projects like Rodin Square, 77H, and other mixed-use retail.

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